Amid the scorching sunlight from earlier this week, youngsters honed their soccer skills at Rainy River Community College as part of the “College for Kids” program.
Wade Sutton once again headed up the youth soccer program, which he noted is in its third summer in the Falls after being associated with the local recreation program the previous two years.
“This year we decided just to join the International Falls Soccer Club for the year with College for Kids,” he said. “We’ve got a different group, different people joined, so it’s just a growing program.”
In addition to attracting youngsters nearby in the Falls and in Canada, other participants included summer visitors from farther away, such as Grace O’Kane, 10, who traveled from Australia to see relatives.
Sutton said he teaches “a lot about the basics and keeping the ball on the ground.”
“My dad learned soccer in Brazil — I grew up in Brazil and in Mexico — and so I teach kind of the Latin American style of soccer,” he said.
Sutton said interest in soccer is growing in the Falls and he would like to see it grow further.
When asked about the petition drive this spring to urge the Falls School Board to support beginning a varsity soccer program for boys and girls, Sutton said he believes such a program could develop over time.
“I think if you start in elementary (school) with soccer, and let it just grow up from there, and if the kids are interested and the parents are interested in soccer, then that will just happen,” he said.
Sutton said starting a soccer program is “financially doable,” given how inexpensive equipment costs are for soccer compared to other sports and the possibility of obtaining funding outside of the school district.
“(It could be) a community program to start off with and then, if interest is there, then (the) school can jump in, if they want to,” he said.
Sutton said playing soccer utilizes many of the same skills used in other sports.
“It’s a lot like basketball and hockey, as far as the give-and-go, the passes, the team effort,” he said. “A lot of the same things you learn in those sports you use in soccer, too. It’s just the summer version of it.”
